It is difficult to deal with a narcissist when you are a grown, independent, fully functioning adult. The children of narcissists have an especially difficult burden, for they lack the knowledge, power, and resources to deal with their narcissistic parents without becoming their victims. Whether cast into the role of Scapegoat or Golden Child, the Narcissist's Child never truly receives that to which all children are entitled: a parent's unconditional love. Start by reading the 46 memories--it all began there.

Friday, January 26, 2018

In March of 2012 I wrote a blog entry entitled “Empathetic
Narcissist = Oxymoron.” In reviewing that post recently I came across this
line: “Empathy is that quality that allows us to identify with the feelings of another…Narcissists
don’t know how to do this—they don’t have the capacity and because of that,
they find no value in it.”[1]

In re-reading this line it
occurred to me that some will read this and their own natural empathy may lead
them to feeling sorry for the narcissist. After all, the narcissist is being
deprived of something natural and fundamental and even essential to the
building of character. That which most of us take for granted has been denied,
either through trauma or the fickleness of nature, to narcissists and some of
us are prompted not only feel sorry for them but find the fact of this
privation sufficient to give them a pass on their behaviours. This may be our
natural inclination but, believe me, to do so is a grave mistake.

While it is true that narcissists
lack empathy—it is one of the defining features of narcissism, after all—it is
not necessarily true that the narcissist experiences suffering as a result of
this lack. Empathy is not part of our survival instinct, selfishness is,
because selfishness helps us to hoard resources that guarantee our survival, even
at the expense of others. If we had empathy and shared our resources, we might
die.

Very young children are naturally
very selfish and lacking in empathy. Your infant doesn’t care how
sleep-deprived you are, he only cares that his discomfort is relieved. Empathy
is supposed to evolve as the child matures and becomes more cognizant of others
and more capable of fending for himself. Children are supposed to gradually
outgrow this selfishness, to become increasingly aware not only of others but
of the needs and feelings of others and eventually to respond to them with
emotional resonance. By the time we reach adulthood, if our development has
been on track we not only can read and write and have the basic skills
necessary for autonomy, we have developed the empathy for others that allows us
to function well socially.

Unfortunately not all of us
develop that empathy—narcissists are chief among those who lack it. We who have
grown up with an ingrained sense of empathy find it difficult to grasp that
someone can be without one. It is further difficult to grasp that they don’t
miss it at all.

How is this possible? Well, think
of it this way: if you had never eaten jellied moose nose[2], would you
miss it? You might even think that it was an undesirable thing to eat and be
glad you’ve never tasted it and have no wish to ever do so. And because you
have never tasted it, you most definitely would not miss it, would you?

Well, narcissists lack empathy.
They have never had it, they don’t recognize it when it is directed at them,
and when they realize that it can make you very vulnerable, they don’t want it.
They like to see it in others because it gives them a way to manipulate those
others, which is precisely why they don’t want it for themselves. Narcissists
do not miss being empathetic because they have never experienced it—they quite
literally do not know what they are missing. But, like you and the jellied
moose nose, they aren’t exactly eager to experience it.

So, ask yourself—should I feel
sorry for you because you have never tasted jellied moose nose? Should I excuse
bad table manners and look the other way when you eat your spaghetti with your
hands—both hands—because you, poor thing, have never been able to eat jellied
moose nose? If you don’t care about it, don’t want any for yourself, and don’t
feel deprived by the lack, why should I feel bad for you because your life—and
diet—has been deficient in the jellied remains of a moose’s nose? Wouldn’t I be
guilty of wanting it for you more than you want it for yourself? What business,
actually, is it of mine?

Is it any different with empathy?
If the narcissist doesn’t miss it (because he never had it) and doesn’t want it
(because he believes it leaves him open to manipulation), why feel bad for him?
Don’t say “I know how I would feel…” because that doesn’t matter—what is
germane here is how that narcissist feels. If you think he feels the way you
would, that is projecting (which is a narcissistic trait—check yourself for
fleas!) and it has absolutely nothing to do with how that narcissist feels.

So, because he lacks empathy, he
doesn’t know any better and you should cut him some slack, right?

Nope. Unless he has been living
under a rock in a cave in the bowels of an ancient volcano, he knows better
because the clues are everywhere. Movies and TV shows often are no more than
elaborate morality plays that effectively demonstrate that characters who lack
empathy end up negatively. Books, news articles, overheard conversations—all
contain the general consensus that people who lack empathy are assholes and
idiots, disliked and disrespected.

That means that narcissists know
what empathy is and they know that the society expects some degree of it from
all of us. The narcissist also knows that he can use the vulnerabilities that
empathy exposes to manipulate others—which means that if he develops empathy he
will be vulnerable to people like himself. The narcissist well know what
empathy is and she knows that it is a powerful means to manipulate and control
others, either by manipulating their empathy or feigning her own.

The truth is, you cannot miss
something you have never had. You can want it, you can yearn for it, but you
can’t miss it. If you are inclined to feel sorry for a narcissist for his lack
of empathy, imagine how you would feel if I were to feel sorry for you for your
lack of jellied moose nose experience? You might appreciate that I was thinking
of you, but if I offered to bring you a nice big plate of it, wouldn’t you
quickly decline my offer?

And so it is with the narcissist
and empathy—she doesn’t feel bad, she doesn’t suffer from her lack of empathy
any more than you feel bad or suffer from your lack of acquaintance with the
jellified moose snout. You might think the narcissist is missing out on
something beautiful and necessary but the narcissist will have a very different—and
quite valid—point of view.

Why is it valid? Because it never
works to want something for someone more than they want it for themselves. Because,
no matter how much we believe we are right, we don’t have the right to impose
our wishes for someone onto them, not even narcissists. They have the same
right of self-determination as you and I do, and it is just as sacrosanct, even
if it is self-serving and counter-productive. Because we don’t have the right
to try to change other adults to suit ourselves, no matter what. But most
important, because that narcissist has a perfect right to be a narcissist, to
continue being a narcissist, and to even enjoy being a narcissist. We do not
have a right try to change them or even to expect them to change.

This can be difficult to accept
because their lack of empathy can make life very difficult for us and when
something is going wrong in our lives, we have a natural instinct to want to
change it. If our narcissistic parent is wreaking havoc in our lives it is
natural to wish for that parent to change and stop doing it. We impute the same
emotional processes to the narcissist that we, ourselves, enjoy and so we
believe that those things that motivate us will motivate them. But we are
wrong. You cannot appeal to the empathy of a person who has none and you cannot
give empathy to someone who doesn’t want it.

Most of all, you cannot empathize
with a feeling that is not there. When you feel bad for the poor narcissist who
is devoid of empathy you are not empathizing, you are projecting. You are
assuming that the narcissist is feelings the same pangs you are feeling when,
in fact, the person is not feeling bereft at all. That is how you believe you
would feel if your empathy were to disappear tomorrow and you are projecting
onto that narcissist—it is not at all the nothingness that the narcissist is
feeling.

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

So, Christmas and Hanukkah are over and the New Year is upon
us. How many of you got hoovered?

Hoovering has one major objective:
to allow the N to feel like s/he is in control of the relationship. If you have
been successfully NC or LC over a period of weeks or longer prior to the holidays, unless
your N is a malignant ignoring N, s/he is going to feel that you have taken
control of the relationship, something she finds threatening. The malignant
ignoring N will have put you out of mind so unless there is a compelling reason
to put on the perfect family charade, you will likely be spared any contact.
The rest of us are not so lucky.

By now, if your Ns were going to
hoover you, it has begun. Most likely you received unanticipated gifts, cards,
letters, even phone calls or texts. You may have inadvertently invited such
contact by naïvely
assuming that she would not take the Christmas card you sent as a sign that all
is forgiven and the lines of communication are now fully open again. You may
have maintained and defended your NC boundaries but your Ns believe their image
is at stake so they have decided to take back control of the relationship by
luring your back into their lair the fold.

You may have received just the
gift you wanted/needed from them or they may have sent you the same old junk
you usually get—Dollar Store and garage sale finds or things they would like
for themselves. You may have received something you cannot afford for yourself
like a new laptop or tablet or iPhone, or something you simply do not want: a
course in Tae Kwon Do or a cruise to a deserted island. Or it could be gifts
for your children but nothing for you, or gifts you could never afford for your
kids like a battery operated child’s car or a bouncy castle or something
outrageously expensive, gifts designed to hoover your kids because kids are
easier to manipulate than wary adults and your Ns expect you will come right
along with the children.

This is not likely to stop. You
may get letters in which they cry about being lonely over the holidays, how
they miss their grandbabies, how they miss you. They will paint a dismal
picture of the sad lives they have now that you are no longer in it. They will
tug at your heartstrings and make you feel guilty for turning your back on this
sad, pathetic old woman… Or you may get the letter that
rips the flesh off your back as it seeks to excoriate you for your refusal to
give them their due. The letter may be blatant and bold or it may be sneaky and
passive aggressive, but it feels to you, as you read it, like the attack that
it is. Either way, you may get missives
from your Ns that are designed to make you feel bad for not allowing your Ns to
have their way with you.

If you got blindsided by this kind
of crap this year, it was because you didn’t have a plan. The reason you lacked
a plan may have been because you didn’t think you needed one—it never occurred
to you that your feeling sorry for your N (a fatal weakness they will exploit)
might backfire on you. You may have been left scrambling, trying to figure out
what to do or how to handle it, on the spur of the moment. Depending on the
method your N used to intrude on your holiday cheer, you may have been hurt,
outraged or even frightened by their incursion into your peace.

Some Ns will hint at their
intentions beforehand by sending messages in advance: invitations to Christmas
dinner, hints that you should invite them for a holiday-oriented gathering,
even blatantly telling you when they will be showing up at your
house—uninvited—to deliver gifts. Other Ns will just send a card with no
foreshadowing and pop up at your door uninvited, expecting to be asked in
and entertained. Some will send packages with no return addresses—even fake
return addresses. Others will send gifts and messages via a third party who is
invited—or who is at least not persona
non grata—to your home.

Any way you slice it, narcissism
takes on a whole new dimension of insensitivity and disrespect during any kind
of special occasion, from christenings to funerals, and most especially
cultural celebrations. Your Ns friends may think nothing of her not having you
over for Sunday dinners, but they most definitely will have something to say if your N’s holiday plans do not include
you and your family. Your N doesn’t care about your feelings (if she did, she
wouldn’t be an N) but she most certainly cares about her image. When her
friends are waxing lyrical about their grandchildren, painting pictures of
lavish holiday feasts attended by three or more generations of family, your N
is sitting there thinking that you
are the reason she is looking bad among her peers. Unless she is an ignoring N,
in which case she has told everyone what a bitch you are and she is refusing to
pander to you so she has cut you off this season—and how lucky her friends are
not to have such difficult and uncaring children—she is going to be feeling
that she has to do something so she isn’t left out of the Great and Gracious
Grannies Club.

You first need to understand that
this is mostly about power. If you have the power to keep her away from you
and/or her grandchildren, then in her eyes, you have too much. It means you
have the power to make her look bad in front of her frenemies and the rest of
the family. It means, to her, that you are in control of her, not the other way
around. And this does not set well with any N. Up to the holiday season she can
fool herself into thinking she is controlling the silence or she has been able
to make it work for her by telling her friends how sad her life is, how lonely
she is, all because of you being a bitch.

She has no concept of a
relationship in which someone is not in control, so no matter what your real
reason for NC or LC, she perceives it as you thinking you are in control of her
and she cannot countenance that. Some Ns will pick a fight in order to come out
in control (they do not doubt their own power) but others—my guess is most of
them—simply ignore your boundaries and do what they want. And if you refuse
their invitations despite their manipulations, then they will barge in on you
and your events without invitation, even if they have been specifically told to
stay away. They will do whatever they can to wrest what they perceive as control
of the relationship from you.

So what can you do? You can have a
plan. If you have a fair idea of the kinds of things they will do, you can have
a plan as to how to handle it. Just make sure that your image in the family is
not more important to you than the peace you get from keeping her out of your
special occasions because this is one of those “You can’t have your cake and
eat it too,” situations. Personally, I look at it this way: she is already
assassinating my character behind my back over absolutely nothing so I might as
well do something to deserve it.

What kind of plan? Well, what is
your N likely to do? Here are a few scenarios:

1. Sends cards/letters to your children

Get a PO Box several months before
the holidays and put in a mail forwarding notice with the post office. Have all
mail forwarded to the PO Box. Intercept and determine what to do with the
letters/cards. If they contain money or gift cards, decide whether to give them
to the children or donate them to charity.

2. Sends packages to your house

A.Invest in a custom-made stamp that says
“Moved, left no forwarding address". Stamp the packages (and any mail addressed
to you or your partner) and sent them back.

B. Give the contents of the packages to a
women’s shelter or other charity

C.Put the packages in the bin

3. Shows up at your house uninvited

A.If you answer the door and are surprised
by her, close the door. Do not answer again until you are sure she is gone

B.Tell her to leave and not to come back. If
she refuses, call the police.

4. Calls on the phone

A.Don’t answer

B.Block her

C.Tell her to not call again

Narcissists can be very creative
and they can come up with all kinds of things that you hadn’t thought of so you
have to have a “go-to” response. Mine is basically this: avoid contact. That
means do everything you need to do to avoid contact: hang up the phone, close
the door, walk the other way. It means never to invite them in, accept an
invitation, respond in any way other than to say “leave me alone.”

We talk a lot about setting and
enforcing boundaries with our Ns but this is a time that we must set boundaries
with ourselves. The N is ruthless and heartless. They will do anything,
literally anything, to get what they
want and sometimes they only want it because you are withholding it. (That is
when you finally capitulate to their heartbroken begging for a chance to see
your children and when you give in they spend the time criticising our
housekeeping by doing your housework or playing cards with each other and
pretty much ignoring you kids.) You need to set boundaries with yourself now,
boundaries that say that even if NM really IS heartbroken about not seeing your
kids, it is too late. She had her warnings and she refused to respect your
boundaries and now it is over and you will no longer allow her to hoover you
back into a one-sided, self-serving relationship that gives you stress and
anxiety and nothing in compensation for it.

You see, regardless of what your N
thinks, the power ultimately rests with you and it always has. She cannot take
it away from you, although you can give it to her. Whatever disguise she
chooses to use—heartbroken grandma, outraged mother, pitiful old lady, cold,
aloof superior—the struggle is really
about control—control over you. She will put any face on it that she thinks
will work to get you to relinquish control to her and you have to keep your eye
on the truth so as not to be distracted by her theatrics, empty promises and
meaningless gestures.

Why does she want control of you
(even ignoring Ns want this control)? NSupply. If she has control of you, she
has control of the NSupply she gets from you and through you. All of her
antics, including all forms of hoovering, come down to this one thing: NSupply
and control of its sources.

So, the best way to handle
hoovering, especially around the holidays when it invariably ramps up, is to
not respond and block all avenues of access to you and your family. For some
very persistent Ns, it may take a Cease and Desist letter from a lawyer, even a
restraining order from the court. But if you are serious about your peace as
they about their NSupply, you won’t hesitate.

Set some boundaries for yourself.
Start now so that by the time the holidays roll around next year you will be
experienced and practiced at protecting yourself and your home and family, you
will have heard all of her excuses and stories and complaints and you no longer
feel a tug at your heartstrings when she rolls out one of her tear-jerking tales
designed to soften your resolve. You are the one in control of your life and
she cannot take control without your cooperation. The hoovering is all about
her and her image and her NSupply and not in the least about you or your
feelings or well-being. Remember that and don’t fall for her tricks. If you
successfully resist long enough she will go elsewhere, to those whose
resistance is less formidable. Then, and only then, can you have some peace.

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Facebook Group!

The Narcissist's Child now has a Facebook group dedicated to helping adults who had narcissistic parents or parental figures: this group is not suitable for children or for the parents of children whose other parent is a narcissist. Unless you or your spouse had a narcissistic parent, this group will not be the right place for you.

Because the group is classified as a "secret" group, nobody can find it on a Facebook search, so your name and membership are completely confidential.

I personally monitor the group daily. No narcs, trolls, or manipulation/attacks are allowed, and anyone who engages in that kind of behaviour will have to leave the group. The objective is to create a safe place where you can talk to each other (and me) in privacy about the journey from victim to victor.

Unfortunately, spambots have figured away around the Captcha filter that my email app uses and the maker of the app has ignored my requests to make it more robust. I was only allowed 100 emails per month--I am writing this on the 10th of the month and spam has already taken more than 85 of my alloted emails: I have had to remove the email app because the volume of spam is taking all of the emails, leaving none for you. I am currently looking for another email app and when it is installed, I will revise this notice. Until then, however, there is no way to reach me via email.PLEASE DISREGARD THE INFORMATION BELOW UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

If you would like to join, send me an email using the form at the bottom of this page (do NOT use the comment section because that will publish your email address for the world to see) telling me a little about yourself and your experiences with narcissistic parents or parental figures and why you wish to join the group and I will get back to you.

Please double-check that you have included your CORRECT email address...I reply to every request I receive, so if you don't get a reply (and my reply hasn't been dumped into your spam or junkmail folder), that is your first clue that I don't have a correct email address to reach you. Please note, however, that I process requests only on Mondays, so if you don't hear back right away, don't panic...wait for next Monday!

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The Narcissist's Child contains my experiences as the child of a malignant narcissist and my understanding of the disorder. It is an attempt to describe and demonstrate the dynamics of a relationship with a malignant narcissist, particularly a malignant narcissist mother, to people who have little or no experience with the disorder, those who have been left reeling by the unexpected repercussions of being involved with a narcissist, and for those who, having been involved with one, need the support that come from knowing that you are not alone.

I am not a mental health professional and nothing on The Narcissist's Child should be taken as an expert opinion. This are my experiences, perceptions, and opinions, nothing more. Nothing here is a substitute for the advice of or the diagnosis and treatment by, a mental health professional. Do not rely on information on this site as a substitute for the advice of a qualified mental health professional.

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